Kevin Smith

JP Liz V1

US director Kevin Smith was left red-faced after he was asked to disembark from a flight because he was overweight.
Smith was shocked by the request after boarding a flight from Oakland to Burbank on Southwest Airlines. The Clerks director claims he was told that his weight made him a safety risk.The airline states that overweight passengers must be able to lower both armrests or pay for two seats.
He said on his Twitter page: "I know I'm fat. But was [the flight captain] really justified in throwing me off a flight for which I was already seated?
"I'm way fat. But I'm not THERE just yet. But if I am, why wait till my bag is up and I'm seated WITH ARM RESTS DOWN in front of a packed plane with a bunch of folks who'd already I.d.ed me as Silent Bob" (a character he has played in several of his films
Smith was offered a £62 voucher as compensation, and managed to board a later flight with the airline.

poor fella thats embarassing

Melion

Bit of a joke that he was too fat for one flight but thin enough to board one a few hours later.

xzanti

They must have upgraded him for his troubles.. to 2 seats

Busi_Girl08

He's not exactly the biggest guy in the world. In fairness...

Diabhal Beag

He's pretty big in fairness. He was never a skinny lad either.

JP Liz V1

A Twitter storm has erupted over the ejection of an American film director from a Southwest Airlines flight for being too fat.
Kevin Smith was told he could not fly on a Southwest Airlines flight from Oakland to Burbank, California, because he didn’t fit properly in the seat.
Smith, director of “Clerks” and “Chasing Amy”, updated his Twitter account, which has over 1.65 million followers, throughout the incident.
At one point he tweeted: “But, by their own guidelines, I was not, in fact, 2 Fat 2 Fly: the arm rests went down & I could buckle my seat belt w/o an extender. So...?”
Body odour, bad singing, being saucy; you can be thrown off for anything these days
Smith, who has travelled with Southwest before, posted a picture of himself onboard the plane with his cheeks puffed out (above). His Twitter torrent sparked support from fans and prompted Southwest to issue an apology via its Twitter feed, as well as issuing Smith with a $100 voucher.



Southwest’s “Customer of Size” policy requires larger passengers to purchase two seats if they cannot be comfortably accommodated in a single seat. It has been in place for 25 years.
A frequent flier reported a similar incident in June last year. He claims to have been prevented from boarding a Southwest flight from Las Vegas because he was deemed too large to fit in one seat, despite having flown with the carrier up to 50 or 60 times in the previous year alone.
A statement on the airline’s blog said: “This policy is not unique to Southwest Airlines and it is not a revenue generator... If a customer cannot comfortably lower the armrest and infringes on a portion of another seat, a customer seated adjacent would be very uncomfortable and a timely exit from the aircraft in the event of an emergency might be compromised if we allow a cramped, restricted seating arrangement.”
Both Smith and the airline acknowledged that he had bought two seats for his original flight from Oakland, where he had spoken at the Macworld Expo conference. But he was flying standby in order to catch an earlier flight, and only one seat was available.
The ensuing debate led to a temporary failure of Southwest’s servers due to the weight of traffic, about which Smith commented on Twitter: "Wow. @southwestair servers going down because of traffic from kevinsmith fiasco." They'll blame THAT on my width, too.”
The term “Kevin Smith Twitter” was the 23rd most searched for term in Google at 1pm today. He has used the media attention to highlight the release of his forthcoming movie, Cop Out.

gscully

On short-haul journeys like SF to LA, a lot of the planes are quite small. I flew from Richmond VA to New York, on a small jet and as we taxied onto the runway, the stewardess ask two people to move from the front of the plane to the back to balance it. Well didn't that just make this nervous flyer feel great!

I can certainly understand it happening alright.

Vic_Mackey

There's an SModcast in which he describes the whole thing:
http://www.smodcast.com/

(Warning, it's almost 90 mins long)

paddyismaddy

Melion

Thats an American Airlines plane

Utopia Parkway

Seems a bit weird. I know Kevin Smith is fat but I've seen far fatter people aboard flights.

Jules

To give a brief over view of the smodcast, he normally buys two seats for personal reason. Doesnt like sitting beside strangers and if his wife is travelling with him he buys three seats. Basically southwest is what mr o'leary based ryanair on, so cheap tickets.

He flew out that morning no issue. And on the way back he arrived at the airport early, and checked to see if he could get on an earlier flight. Was put on standby. The lady dealign with his ticket noticed he had book two, and said that there was only one seat available and he explained that he can fit in one but preferes the personal space. Anyway got on the plane and was put in the middle of three seats. Arm rests went up and down no problem, which is the marker for people fitting into seat, as per the "customers of size" standards outlined on their website.

Anyways airhostess came up to him and told him that the captain said he was a danger to other passangers and that he needed to get off the plane. He spoke with her and showed the arm rest thing but still she kept on and on about him getting off the plane. Ends up that the captain didnt tell him to get off the crew made a judgement call and fecked up! On comes the publicity feck up, and here we are.